Bring Me Back to Life
by LadyEpic101
Summary: Set twenty-five years before the events of Naruto. Orochimaru stares out the window of the Hokage's office, bored as usual. He people watches a bit, before he notices something unusual. He sees a woman reviving a bird. He decides to investigate, and finds out that she is far more interesting than she seemed. Of course, Jiraiya and Tsunade won;t let him live it down. OroxOc.
1. Chapter 1

Steps echoed down the brightly lit hallways of the Hokage Residence. Birds chirped outside, lending the building a peaceful atmosphere. A door clicked open, then creaked shut.

"You wanted to see me, Lord Hokage?" a woman with light blonde hair confirmed.

"Yes, Tsunade. I have a mission for you and the rest of Team Hiruzen," a brunette man began, stroking his small goatee.

"Is that so, Sarutobi Sensei?" a deep, lilting voice hissed from the right. Tsunade's eyes flicked over to the stark contrast of black hair and white skin leaning on the windowsill. To equal amounts of her relief and disappointment, his inhumanly amber eyes were watching something outside.

"Sorry I'm late! What did I miss?" the door burst open to reveal a white-haired man rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Jiraiya, so nice of you to join us," the same, hissing voice cut through the light-hearted atmosphere.

"Orochimaru? I thought you were on a mission that was supposed to take all month?" Jiraiya crossed his arms and glared at his teammate.

"I was," came the short reply.

"That's enough catching up," the Hokage interrupted. He began to explain the details of the fairly simple but possibly dangerous assignment.

Orochimaru was only half paying attention. He was so incredibly bored by his missions lately. The last one was supposed to be a large-scale multi-shinobi infiltration of a massive bandit camp, but he had wiped it out in a week, and half of that was spent traveling there and back. A deep sigh escaped him as he watched the villagers bustling about their own dull lives below. The same people, doing the same thing, every day, every week, every month, all year.

He hated it.

Movement drew his eyes to a patch of grass and trees next to a set of stairs. A woman in a pink kimono kneeled down in the grass, reading a book. A blackbird fluttered to the ground in front of her, convulsing. The woman looked at the bird, dropping her book. She watched it as the spasm grew weaker; the bird flapped weakly in its death throes. Orochimaru smiled. Death was one of the few things that broke Konoha's monotonous cycle. The woman in pink put down the book and cradled the lifeless avian in her hands. _How weak, mourning the loss of an animal,_ the snake-eyed shinobi glared at the woman who had once been interesting. He was about to turn his attention elsewhere when the woman's hands started glowing the tell-tale green of a medical jutsu. His pupils dilated in curiosity. The bird was dead, what good would-

The bird flapped its wings and flew out of the woman's open palms, then landed in a tree and began to sing.

_Did I just see..._ Orochimaru's eyes widened. No, that was impossible. What that woman just did was **impossible**.

"Here are the files with more information. You leave tomorrow," the Hokage concluded the debriefing.

* * *

_'The beast turned its eyes upon the maiden, blood lust clear in the glassy red glare. She shrunk away, she had no hero to save her this time. Surely, she was damned.'_

"What are you reading?"

The woman snapped her head up from her book. She must have been so engrossed in the story that she didn't hear someone walking up to her!

In reality, he had stood there watching her for the past fifteen minutes.

"Oh, j-just," Her voice caught in her throat when she realized who she was talking to. His deathly white skin, inky black hair, purple markings and terrifying eyes were impossible to misidentify. The black flak jacket, long-sleeved shirt and pants of the same color made his pallor and features all the more exaggerated. It was Orochimaru.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," his voice was soft, feathery even.

"Oh, no, it's fine really, I was just reading _'__The Miko and the Dragon', _" she looked down at the worn old cover, uneven bangs falling in her face to cover her blush.

"You spent all day reading that old fable?" his voice was amused now.

"I've been here all day?" the girl was genuinely astonished at herself. She had a tendency to get lost in her reading, but to really sit there from noon 'til sunset?

"What's your name?"

"Nanami."

Orochimaru smirked. He recognized that body language, that tone of voice. It was so similar to fear, yet oh so different. A plan began to form. It was a delicate plan that depended almost entirely on her reactions, but it was the most likely to succeed.

"Well, Miss Nanami, it's getting dark. Allow me to walk you home, please," Nanami looked up; he was offering his hand. He was looking down at her, smiling warmly. It made her knees feel weak, and her heart flutter. The whole world dissipated around him. The only thing she could see when she took his hand were those inhuman, amber eyes.

* * *

The girl was so foolish.

She hadn't realized that she was under a genjutsu as soon as she looked up from her book. He smirked. He was walking her home in broad daylight, around dozens of people, but to her the streets were dark and empty. She huddled closer to him, placing her other hand on his arm for comfort. Orochimaru took note of all the stares of either wonder, suspicion, or jealousy. The latter came from both men and women. The men couldn't understand how a creep like the Snake Sannin could hook a cute little doll like Nanami, and the women couldn't understand how a talentless nobody like Nanami caught the eye of one of the most powerful and handsome ninja in the village.

"I live here," Nanami spoke up, voice faltering. They were in front of a large, simple apartment complex, one of many in the Hidden Leaf.

"I'll see you around, then," Orochimaru slipped his hand back into his pocket after she let go of his elbow. He waited for her to walk inside before jumping onto the roof of the building. With a simple hand sign, he summoned a white snake. It slithered off of his arm and down the side of the building, before slipping into Nanami's open window.

The snake would hold the genjutsu until she fell asleep.

This was too easy.

* * *

(Three days later)

Team Hiruzen walked through the gates of Konoha, Orochimaru on the left side of his teammates. They headed towards the Hokage residence to give the report of the surprisingly long mission. It wasn't that their opponents were any sort of match for the sannin's skills, there were just a lot of them.

"So. I saw you walking arm in arm with that brown-haired girl the other day," Jiraiya prodded, hoping to finally embarrass his longtime friend and rival.

Orochimaru glanced sideways at the annoying shinobi.

"Yes, what of it?" his voice was a growl rather than a hiss.

"Ooh, looks like someone's stolen the stone cold snake's heart," Tsunade teased, happy that her reclusive teammate finally had someone to care about.

"Oh, please, I just met her yesterday," he retorted, closing his eyes in irritation.

"So what's her name, huh? She looked like she had HUGE-"

Orochimaru glared coldly at his 'friends', freezing them in their tracks. He continued walking towards the Hokage residence as they recovered from the after effects of angering the snake shinobi.

"Oh man, I swear, the guy could freeze fire with that look if he wanted," Jiraiya sighed, he had to remember not to, as Sarutobi had once put it, 'tickle a sleeping dragon.'

"At least he's got a girlfriend now. Maybe he'll stop being all mopey and introverted now," Tsunade pointed out.

"Yeah, either that or he'll get so brow-beaten that he'll never interact with anyone again, like some of your past flings,"

"Excuse me?"

Jiraiya looked over to see a very angry and very strong Tsunade winding up a punch.

* * *

The forest was quiet, save the sounds of the animals. Nanami sat with her back to a large tree a ways off the beaten path. She was reading her book again, though she couldn't quite get into it. All she could think about was that night a few days ago.

Orochimaru had really walked her home that night, out of the kindness of his own heart. She remembered the day she had first seen him vividly. It was at the academy, he was in his last year of classes, while she had just started. She was already training to become a medical ninja, like her mother and her mother before her. Classes had just ended, and she was walking through the halls when someone bumped into her.

_"Oh, excuse me."_ He had said. She had looked into his eyes, surprised by their amber-golden color. She watched him walk away, disappearing behind into the crowd.

Nanami sighed. She would never finish the book like this.


	2. Chapter 2

**So apparently part of the ending of the first chapter got cut off. Oh well. Just means this one'll be longer.**

* * *

Orochimaru watched Nanami from behind a thick tree trunk. She had her nose buried in that book, legs tucked underneath the side of her body, as usual. How absolutely dull. He contemplated his next course of action. He needed to be absolutely sure that she could indeed bring back the dead. But how? Surely she would deny it if he outright confronted her. Perhaps...

* * *

A snake slithered through the grass, bumping into Nanami's leg. She looked down at the sickly reptile. It was dying. Her thin hands reached for the reptile, but it moved away from her. The woman furrowed her eyebrows at the stubborn creature. Couldn't it see she was only trying to help? Suddenly, terrible spasms wracked the creatures frame. Then, just as abruptly as they started, they stopped. The snake was dead.

Taking pity on the animal, Nanami picked it up and cradled its limp body in her arms; its dark green body stuck out in sharp contrast to her red kimono and yellow obi. The pastel green glow of medical jutsu cast strange shadows throughout the forest, causing an elongated pupil to constrict. With a hiss, the snake lived again, slithering out of Nanami's arms and through the short, worn grass of the forest floor.

Right up to Orochimaru.

Her eyes widened in terror.

"That snake, it was dead. And you... you brought it back to life," his voice was soft, barely above a whisper. Still she shrunk back in fear when he took a step towards her.

"N-no I didn't! It was just sick, I-" she stammered.

"Don't lie to me."

He knelt in front of her; he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked up. His amber eyes met her doe-eyed gaze.

"You have a gift," the soothing words rolled off his tongue.

"No, no, it's unnatural, freakish even. The dead must stay dead," Nanami recited.

"Who ever told you that?" Orochimaru tilted his head. He sat next to her, legs bent in front of him. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, tilting his head to look at her, which caused his hair to fall forward off his shoulder.

"My father,"

He placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Tell me. I promise I won't speak one word to another soul," his voice lured her in, made her feel comfortable enough to trust him with a memory she tried so hard to forget.

"My father was a kind man, but he was a drunkard. He would lose control of his emotions, swinging wildly to anger, then breaking down into tears the second afterward, apologizing profusely for what he said or did. I was gifted a kitten for one of my birthdays, I don't remember which anymore. It fell ill, it was so weak and small. My mother, she tried to heal it, but there was only so much she could do. I remember being so sad, cradling it in my arms, wishing for him to get better. He-he died. It was sudden, one second he was playing with a loose thread, the next he was laying on his side, gasping for air as his heart gave out. I held him to my chest and I cried and cried and cried. Then I felt him bump hid head against my chin. My mother was pressed up against the far wall, staring at me in disgust. She looked at me like I was, like I had committed an atrocious crime. I didn't understand what happened at the time. I was just so happy that he was alive, and so confused when my mother grabbed my shoulder and steered me into my room, yelling that I was in trouble when Father got home,"

Nanami leaned forward grasping either side of her head. Orochimaru moved closer to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. He went so far as to place his chin on top of her head, pulling her until she leaned into his chest.

"I remember how he yelled and screamed and swore. I remember holding my kitten tight, I remember the pinpricks of pain where his claw pierced my shirt. Then, my father he, he," she sobbed. He whispered comforting words, running a hand through her hair. She calmed down enough to continue her story.

"He ripped my kitten from my arms, my sweet little darling Toko, and flung him against he wall. His head made a wet thud, and he fell to the ground. He bounced once before settling. I always thought that was so odd. He bounced. I thought he would splatter on the floor, break all of his limbs. But then he came after me. He picked me up by my shoulder. It hurt so bad. He threw me into the hallway closet and shut the door, and locked it. He left me in there for three days. No food. No water. No sunlight. I missed the sun the most. My mother was the one who finally let me out. She fed me and gave me a cup of water and sent me to bed. She acted like nothing happened. Like I hadn't been locked in a closet for the past three days. I went back to the academy the next day. I had to give the excuse that I was sick. They believed it, despite knowing that my mother was one of the greatest medical nin in the Hidden Leaf," anger crept into her voice.

"What happened to them? Your parents," he used his hand to gently massage the crook of her neck.

"They died two years apart. Both accidents: Father drowned in the bath, drunk as a skunk, and mother slipped and broke her back on a chair when cleaning the house one day."

They sat in silence for several moments, intertwined.

"You killed them, didn't you?"

She was going to deny it, but recalled his earlier words.

_"Don't lie to me."_

"How did you figure it out?"

"I can read you well, better than I can most people, if I were to be truly honest. How did you go about it?"

She figured that if he was going to arrest her, he already would have.

"Father was the easy one. I just waited until he was drunk and took a bath. He fell asleep. I held his head under the water until bubble came up. Mother was trickier. She was actually a trained shinobi. One day she was mopping the floor in the kitchen. She wasn't wearing any shoes. I waited until she was facing the table. I planned on her bashing her head open on the edge of it, but she turned around just as I was pushing her. The middle of her spine met the back of a chair, sounding just like Toko's head, but louder. She took longer to die. A couple of hours, actually. I sat there, watching her struggle for breath. I got up to make tea once. She watched me. She tried to speak, but couldn't make any sound. When she died, I ran over to the neighbor's house. I was good friends with their daughter. I told them that I was in time-out, and when I walked into the kitchen to ask if I could go outside and play, I found Mother, dead on the floor."

Orochimaru said nothing for a long time. He simply sat there, holding Nanami and thinking. This girl turned out to be far more intriguing than he thought she would. He inhaled, then paused, pondering what to say.

"Go ahead. You can call me a monster," she interrupted his thoughts.

"I wasn't going to call you a monster," he pulled away from her so that he could look into her eyes, "I was going to say that they deserved it."

* * *

He walked her home again that night. Instead of waiting in the street for her to enter her apartment, he walked with her on the open balcony. She reached her door, then turned to say goodbye. Orochimaru pressed a finger to her lips before she could speak, then hooked it under her chin. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. She braced her hands on his chest. His lips were warm, soft. He placed his free hand on the back of her neck, deepening the kiss and pinning her against the door with his body. His tongue slipped into her mouth and slipped against her own. She was genuinely surprised at how long it seemed. They pulled away, gasping for air.

"I-I should go inside, n-now," Nanami stuttered, gaze travelling from his lips to his eyes.

He smirked at her sudden shyness. His tongue slid out of his mouth and traveled from her neck to her cheek before retracting into his mouth, flicking up at the corner. She blushed darkly and unlocked her door, slipping in with a soft 'good night.'

* * *

Orochimaru walked down the dark streets, lit intermittently by the few stores still open this time of night.

"Hey! Orochimaru!"

His amber gaze flicked curiously towards the voice calling his name. Jiraiya and Tsunade waved at him from the corner restaurant of Ichiraku Ramen.

"Come eat with us! We haven't seen you all day!" Tsunade beckoned.

The dark-haired shinobi let out a deep chuckle, walking over to join his friends at the counter. He took a seat between them. Teuchi smiled hesitantly at him. Orochimaru rolled his eyes. He was well aware that his looks unsettled some people. Tsunade and Jiraiya jabbered away, talking about the day's events. Their teammate rested his chin in his hand, elbow braced on the table. He watched Teuchi busy about the kitchen, only cooking half of the time. Orochimaru idly wondered how the man would react to a snake in the cupboards. But, he decided against it. He wasn't in the mood to bother with a simple chef.

"So, Orochimaru..." Tsunade began, drawing out the last syllable of his name.

He sighed and crossed his arms. He knew what was coming.

"What's going on between you and that little brunette, hm?" she leaned close to him, grin breaking out on her face.

"Her name is Nanami, not 'that little brunette'," he answered, a bit too defensively.

"Ooooh" Tsunade and Jiraiya exclaimed, looking at each other.

"You two gone on a date yet?" Tsunade prodded again.

"Formally? No, not really,"

"Well, you'll have to give us a little more than that, what did you do today, hmm? I saw you walking her home on the way here," Jiraiya pried.

"I found her in the forest, reading. We talked for a while,"

"What did you talk about?" Jiraiya simply had to know.

"Things,"

"You 'talked' about 'things', hmm?" Tsunade hummed suggestively.

"Just what are you implying?" Orochimaru retorted, a humorous lilt to his voice.

"Oh nothing, so have you kissed her yet?" Jiraiya teased.

"If you knew anything, you'd realize that a gentleman never kisses and tells,"

"That means yes!" Tsunade exclaimed triumphantly. Orochimaru hunched his shoulders and tilted his head forward, causing his hair to fall and hide the faint blush on his cheeks. Oddly enough, his pale complexion hid flushing rather well to someone who didn't know to look for the pinkish gray tint.

Of course, that couldn't fool his teammates, who spent the rest of the night asking him questions about his new, as they put it, 'sweetheart.'

* * *

**On a totally unrelated note, child Orochimaru is the most adorable thing ever. More adorable than a kitten and a puppy kissing in a teacup dressed as Pichus. Pichues? Pichi?**

**Anyway, you guys should check out episode 185. At about the 6:30 mark, we are treated to a blushing little Oro.**


	3. Chapter 3

"_Ssssss,"_

Nanami's eyes shot open. She searched in the dark for the source of the noise. A large, python-esque snake stretched itself out beside her in her bed. A scroll was held tightly in its mouth. Confused, she took the scroll and began to read. The message was short and sweet.

_Get dressed. Come outside._

She obeyed the summons, dressing in a simple gray dress. She pulled on a pair of soft sandals and walked outside , locking her door quietly. A snake slithered by her feet. She followed the reptile, figuring that a certain viper-eyed shinobi wanted to see her.

"Good evening," his melodic voice drifted through the silence of the night.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Nanami whispered back, rubbing her eyes.

"Almost midnight, eleven fifty-eight to be exact,"

"Not that I'm not happy to see you, but why did you want me to come out here?"

"I needed you to do something for me," came his hushed words. He placed a hand on her shoulder, then made a seal with his other.

In an instant they were on the roof of the Konoha Hospital.

"How did you," Nanami began.

"Body Flicker technique. Come. You have work to do," Orochimaru led her down to the third floor.

'Wow, the security here is so lax.' Nanami thought as she was lead into a room.

A man knelt at the side of the hospital bed, head in hands. A woman lay down, breathing shallowly and quickly. She was sweating, and looked frail. The man looked up at their arrival, eyes puffy and bloodshot.

"Is she the one you were telling me about? The woman who can save my wife?" The man asked desperately, looking between Orochimaru and the woman at his side.

"Yes. This is Nanami. Nanami, this is Noboru Yamauchi. His wife was injured in combat. Her wounds have healed, but she is already too far gone for even Tsunade to save her," he turned stared deeply into her eyes, "Her life is in your hands."

The woman on the bed gasped and shuddered before exhaling a garbled sigh. Noburu rushed to her side weeping. Nanami hesitated. She had never tried to bring back a human being. But she couldn't turn this man away in his time of need. She at least had to try. With a deep breath, she stepped to the bedside. Noburu backed away, eyes full of sorrow and hope. She placed her hands on the woman's chest and let her chakra flow into her hands. She felt for the woman's life force; it was dull and fading. She enveloped the woman's meager chakra with her own, pulling on the woman's very soul.

* * *

Orochimaru stood inches behind Nanami, ready to intervene if he felt she was in danger. She began to breathe heavily, shaking with exhaustion. He watched her furrow her brows in concentration, lips set in a thin, determined line. He felt her chakra growing weaker and weaker with each passing second. Before he could interrupt the flow of her chakra with his own, she let go of the jutsu and fell into him, unconscious.

Noburu rushed to his wife's side as Orochimaru checked Nanami's vitals. She was still alive. He breathed a relieved sigh. He shouldn't have pushed her so far so soon. After all, from what he gathered, she had only ever revived small animals. He lifted his gaze from the unconscious woman to the weeping man. He felt nothing but disgust. It was weak to weep over someone who had willingly given their life for the village.

"Sh, dear."

The raspy voice stopped one man's sobs and caused the other's eyes to widen in surprise. The formerly deceased Tsubame Yamauchi placed her hand on her awed husband's cheek.

"I can't believe it," Orochimaru breathed, looking back to Nanami. His eyes held a new shade of intrigue and respect.

* * *

A wet rag passed over Nanami's forehead. She opened her eyes to see an unfamiliar ceiling behind a familiar face.

"Sleep well?" Orochimaru teased. He helped her sit up.

"What happened?" Nanami rubbed her head. She had the most awful headache.

"You did it,"

Nanami was confused for a moment; last night's events dawned on her. She stared at her hands in disbelief. Orochimaru took her hands in his own and kissed them, smiling.

"Where are we?" She asked, blushing.

"My home," came the gentle reply.

"Oh, so then I'm in-"

"My bed, yes,"

"I should be getting home," Nanami pushed the warm blanket off of her and tried to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, but he stopped her, grabbing her wrists.

"You're in no condition to walk. You need to rest," he pushed her back down on the bed, pinning her wrists at either side of her head.

She looked up at him, eyes lidded alluringly. He gazed down at her hungrily. He lowered his head to her, lips almost touching, before moving to her neck. He left soft kisses down the smooth skin of her neck, eliciting mewls from her pink lips. She yelped when he bit on the crook of her neck. He chuckled and worried her skin, leaving it red. She struggled, trying to get him to let go of her hands. He returned to her lips with a hungry kiss, shifting his legs so that he straddled her hips. She returned the kiss with equal desire; it quickly turned rough. He forced his tongue past her lips, ignoring her whines. He let go of one wrist, which she promptly tangled in his hair. He grasped the hem of her dress with his free hand and tugged it upwards-

Someone knocked on the door. Orochimaru pulled away and nearly leapt off of the bed, stalking over to the door. He opened it just enough so that he could lean out and glare at the interrupting party. Jiraiya stood with his arms crossed, a serious expression on his face.

"We've been summoned to the Hokage's office," Jiraiya explained. That was usually enough for Orochimaru.

"I'm busy, can it wait?"

Jiraiya was surprised and it showed on his face. Orochimaru opened the door an inch more, allowing his teammate to see over his shoulder.

"Oh," Jiraiya understood his friend's reluctance when he saw Nanami on his bed with ruffled hair, "Well, I'll cover for you this time."

Orochimaru nodded his thanks and closed the door. He returned his attention to Nanami, who was pushing her dress off of her shoulder. His tongue darted out and licked his lips. In the blink of an eye, he was on top of her again and crashed his lips onto hers.

_Tap tap._

He groaned in frustration and looked at his window. A hawk tapped its beak on the glass impatiently. He sighed and gave Nanami a swift kiss.

"I have to go. Stay and rest, I'll be back soon," he placed two fingers on her forehead and closed his eyes. Her breaths slowed as she slipped into a deep sleep.

* * *

**Cock. Blocked.**


End file.
